Double Maths First Thing is square in hex AND decimal!
Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician on a mission to share the joy and love in mathematics, to show that it’s more than the mindless memorisation of arbitrary rules. Guess who nearly got sucked into a 6 ÷ 2 × 3 debate on Mathstodon? I note that “the ISO 80000-2 standard for mathematical notation recommends only the solidus / or fraction bar for division.” So there.
In more edifying news, this is issue #64 of Double Maths First Thing, which is 100 in decimal. However, it started at 0, so last week’s was “really” the hundredth issue. I noticed that the list of numbers that are squares in both hex and decimal is not in the OEIS, but equally, I’d struggle to justify it being interesting to anyone except DMFT readers, and even then maybe not many of you.
Links
I’m not flying anywhere this summer, so I’ve not heard anyone say “why don’t they just board planes back to front, wouldn’t that be quicker?” CGP Grey can answer that. Here’s Wikipedia on the Steffen method.
In TMiP news, there’s a new Animation Collaboration playlist about VECTORS – August’s prompt is RANDOMNESS. There’s also a new podcast episode available. Speaking of videos, undergraduates and sixth formers (or your local equivalent) might be interested in taking part in Mathstory, which is themed around mathematical stories.
I enjoyed Mark Dominus’s dive into Egyption fractions.
Superstar Fractal Kitty points at Moduloku puzzles, which you can solve here. Meanwhile, there are some (vague) details on reddit about how Clues By Sam is made and on Hacker News too. CbS remains my favourite daily puzzle game.
Talking of superstars, I mentioned Ayliean‘s Tower of Hanoi world record at EMF; here’s a lovely little video about it. It always surprises me that the Tower of Hanoi is a relatively recent invention – Lucas invented it in 1883. (The framing of it still troubles me slightly.)
Currently
At MathsWorld, upcoming lates include June Barrow-Green on August 12th from 6:50pm UK time. Tickets for the Pseudorandom Ensemble show on September 21st are not yet available (at least at press time), but keep your eyes on the events page.
Robin Whitty has just beaten the DMFT deadline by putting together the links for Carnival of Mathematics 254, and you can submit your links for the next host, (DMFT favourite) Karen Campe, here.
The next Finite Group livestream is on Thursday August 13th at 6pm UK time, and Scroggs will be coding up solutions to Peter’s historical maths challenges.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have friends and/or colleagues who would enjoy Double Maths First Thing, do send them the link to sign up – they’ll be very welcome here.
If you’ve missed the previous issues of DMFT or – somehow – this one, you can find the archive courtesy of my dear friends at the Aperiodical.
Meanwhile, if there’s something I should know about, you can find me on Mathstodon as @icecolbeveridge, or at my personal website. You can also just reply to this email if there’s something you want to tell me.
Until next time,
C